Courses and Curriculum

Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine (SDM) is distinctive for its small class size (~46), rigorous integrated biomedical education with the School of Medicine (SOM), extensive clinical experiences, and outreach programs. During the first year, dental students participate in the SOM’s LEARN curriculum, which focuses on being:

  • Learning focused
  • Experiential
  • Adaptive
  • Rigorous
  • Novel

 

MED 500D: Basic Mechanisms of Disease
The Basic Mechanisms of Disease component of the Biomedical Building Blocks is divided into several thematic areas: basic cell and tissue histology, general mechanisms of disease including cell injury and repair, cell death, and environmental disease, neoplasms, including tissue changes in response to cancer, molecular mechanisms of cancer, carcinogenesis tumor invasion and metastasis, and tumor immunology; hematology, including components of hemostasis (control of the coagulation pathway including bleeding and thrombosis), components of blood, and pathophysiology of anemias, leukemias, lymphomas, and stem cell malignancies; and characteristics of diseases of the skin (dermatology) including inflammatory, infectious, neoplastic and pigment disorders.

MED 500B Molecular Foundations of Medicine
Molecular Foundations of Medicine covers fundamental principles and concepts of biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, and human genetics. The material in this course is presented within a framework of human health and disease. It provides the fundamental building blocks of knowledge for learning about pathology, pathophysiology and pharmacology, and is essential for future physicians and dentists.

MED 500C Pathogens and Host Defense
Introduces the nature and causes of disease, death, reaction to injury, and repair. Analyzes associated structural changes in cells and tissues, with reference to their functional correlates.

HDM 501 Gross Anatomy of the Head, Neck and Trunk
A lecture and laboratory with emphasis on dissections of the human head, neck, and trunk. Includes functional and topographic anatomy, embryology, clinical correlations, and an introduction to radiology.

HBA 505 Nervous System
Surveys functional neural systems integrated with laboratory studies of the structure and organization of the human central nervous system. Topics include sensory and motor systems and the autonomic nervous system.

HDM 506 Physiology
A graduate-level introduction to the physiology of the organ systems with ultrastructural correlations. Ultrastructural correlations are demonstrated in a laboratory setting using histological preparations in conjunction with electron micrographs illustrating the relevant ultrastructure needed to understand the normal functioning of tissues and organs. The physiology of the major organ systems is addressed in a lecture format with the emphasis on problem-solving. Relevant clinical correlations are addressed at the end of each block in so far as they illustrate how symptoms and signs of disease result from disordered physiology. Medical Physiology addresses the structure and function of the cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, gastrointestinal, endocrine, skeletal, reproductive, and integumentary systems.